New Study Finds Seabirds Avoid Offshore Wind Turbines

[Concerto]

Wind turbines are thought to kill seabirds, but this is the first study that disproves this as they found birds avoid offshore wind farms.

New Study Finds Seabirds Avoid Offshore Wind Turbines (gcaptain.com)

 

[penfold]

Isn't that just differently bad? Or are the areas occupied by WTGs relatively unimportant for habitat?

 

[Knig]

`A quick scan of the study reveals it was a radar and video system used, In 2020 the radar sensed 357 tracks per hour, but the videos for the whole monitoring period (April to October, daylight only) was 1753. For 2021 it was 268 per hour and 1370. They actually state that no collisions were observed on their videos, not that there weren't any.
Other titbit's 17 days power outage 2021, 23 in 2022, System down 75 days in 2021, 29 in 2022.

 

[jamie N]

In 6 years working at offshore windfarms I never saw a dead bird, or any sign of a bird having hit a blade. Also, a chum of mine who was the project manager for maintaining a windfarm, had an ongoing problem with cleaning birdshit off of one particular WTG which was seemingly very attractive to birds, and had it as an ongoing issue.

 

[Bouba]

If a bird survives then obviously it missed the wind turbines

 

[SaltyC]

Large areas of No Go Areas for them. A bit like yachts!?!

 

[LittleSister]

Isn't that just differently bad? Or are the areas occupied by WTGs relatively unimportant for habitat?

My understanding is that how important such areas are as 'habitat' depends largely on whether the wind farms are a feeding ground. (I've no direct expertise of my own, but had a fair bit professional involvement in consulting ecologists and engaging/negotiating with English Nature about seabird conservation in relation to other types of marine related development.)

While it might not seem so to us coastal sailors, wind farms occupy only a small proportion of the sea. The question is whether they are particularly important parts of it for breeding/nesting (I doubt it), feeding (I don't know), or the apparent birds' avoidance of them significantly extends the distance between breeding/nesting sites and the available feeding grounds. Note that different seabird species have different feeding habits and feeding grounds, and different distance ranges for seeking food.

Some species, and geographical populations of them, are considered more important for conservation than others. (The logical consistency for these priorities has often puzzled me - e.g. 'X's must be protected because they're 'rare'. There are only 500 of them in this, the only colony in this county/region/country', regardless of the fact there are zillions of them in the adjacent county/region/country and elsewhere; compared to 'Y's must be protected because this is the biggest, hence most important, colony of them in the county/region/country/continent'!)

Marine wind farms to date have been in shallow waters. Whether such shallow waters are important for all or any seabirds feeding, I don't know. Some wind farms have drying areas within or close to them, which may well also be a factor.

To date the marine wind farms have also been built fairly close to harbours from which construction and maintenance can be carried out, but are now being built at ever greater distances from such harbours, and, I imagine, in greater depths of water. I imagine the more remote from the shore, the less significance it will have for feeding and access to feeding grounds.

Every new wind farm in the EU and (at least for the moment) the UK will have a detailed formal assessment of such factors, and consultation on that assessment, informing the final decision as to whether it can go ahead. [Insert here your own prejudices as to the wisdom, propriety, and desirability of that process and the resulting decisions!]

 

[LittleSister]

Large areas of No Go Areas for them. A bit like yachts!?!

My understanding is that UK wind farms aren't 'no go' areas for yachts (unlike some on the 'foreign' side of the North Sea, where passage through them is prohibited). Perhaps like seabirds, though, most yachts seem to avoid them!

I've sometimes sailed through them, though wouldn't do so in very bad weather or other hazardous conditions. It is an experience that can be either surprisingly pleasant and engaging, or somewhat disorientating and alienating.

In the Thames Estuary there's an easy buoyed channel through a wind farm at Foulgers Gat, with extra wide spacing between the turbines, but there's nothing to stop you taking another route through and on occasion I've gone 'off piste' to cut corners or make the most of the wind (though watch your depths!). For the Thames Estuary wind farms there is a circular exclusion zone around each pylon, and also around workboats (the size of which, embarrassingly, I've forgotten as it's been quite a while - 50m and 100m respectively, IIRC), but that still leaves plenty of space to pass through, so long as you keep your wits about you. (Did I mention watch your depths? )

 

[KevinV]

Not a huge drop really, a very rough third. I wonder what the loss of birds through bird flu was over that period?

 

[LittleSister]

Would fish be able to avoid tidal turbines, I wonder?

 

[LittleSister]

Not a huge drop really, a very rough third. I wonder what the loss of birds through bird flu was over that period?

I imagine that development and other habitat loss onshore (e.g. recreation impacts & general ecological decline) would be of greater significance, though the various adverse impacts tend to be generally additive/cumulative, rather than alternatives. (That might be mitigated to some extent by e.g. the maximum potential population for a given area, and the tendency of the population to expand and reach it, including after each 'setback'.)

 

[Bouba]

I can’t see how birds avoid it...either they hit them and die or they don’t...they don’t have charts and does anyone know if they pass on information to future generations to avoid them? Because if they did, then the bird shooters round here would have a much harder time with their slaughter

 

[Daydream believer]

My understanding is that how important such areas are as 'habitat' depends largely on whether the wind farms are a feeding ground. (I've no direct expertise of my own, but had a fair bit professional involvement in consulting ecologists and engaging/negotiating with English Nature about seabird conservation in relation to other types of marine related development.)

If I am reading you right you seem to be missing the question of flight path. Late one season I was in the Dutch canals & was totally taken aback to watch thousands of birds in flight clearly following the path of the canals.
It really was awe inspiring because of the numbers. There were several flocks & the air was black with them .
But they all had a definate flight path, which was so obviously defined. Each flock was separated by as much as 20 minutes, but each one seemed, somehow, connected. They did not seem particularly high.
So with something that is so important to bird migration, one might ask if some of these farms have been built on a flight path. If so have the birds managed to accomodate a change in their patterns without the consequence of disorientation soon after in the flight? Do they go up & over, or through? Or do they go round them?

 

[LittleSister]

I can’t see how birds avoid it...either they hit them and die or they don’t...they don’t have charts and does anyone know if they pass on information to future generations to avoid them?

Why do you think birds would need charts? They seem to manage to migrate from one end of the earth to the other without them.

Do you not think the birds can see and hear wind farms? They depend, all the time, for their survival on being able to see and hear (perhaps smell, for all I know) danger, food, sex and obstacles to their flight.

If I am reading you right you seem to be missing the question of flight path. Late one season I was in the Dutch canals & was totally taken aback to watch thousands of birds in flight clearly following the path of the canals.
It really was awe inspiring because of the numbers. There were several flocks & the air was black with them .
But they all had a definate flight path, which was so obviously defined. Each flock was separated by as much as 20 minutes, but each one seemed, somehow, connected. They did not seem particularly high.
So with something that is so important to bird migration, one might ask if some of these farms have been built on a flight path. If so have the birds managed to accomodate a change in their patterns without the consequence of disorientation soon after in the flight? Do they go up & over, or through? Or do they go round them?

I take your point.

I do have to say, though, that your own example seems to somewhat undermine it. Yes, some birds will sometimes follow features features for navigation, food/water/resting/nesting availability or, for all we know, aesthetic reasons. That your example was of Dutch canals shows, surely, that such paths are adapted to changes in the environment, including (but not limited to) human interventions such as canals.

The birds in my garden have changed their habit to take advantage of my bird feeders and the non-native species that someone planted previously to form a garden from what would once have been agricultural land, and before that woodland, before that glacial floodwaters, etc. (and so on and so forth back into prehistory). They obviously do not have have any trouble negotiating my fences, clothes line, house or the huge barn behind, etc. etc.

Local flight paths of seabirds, too, are very flexible, and adapted to food sources and threats/disturbance it seems obvious from research I've a slight acquaintance with and flight-tracking that I've seen.

It is clear that breeding and feeding grounds, migration routes etc. change in response to seasonal and longer term climatic changes, evolution in ground conditions (whether that be 'natural' or unnatural human).

Why wind farms would be a general problem for bird migration I find hard to believe.

 

[LittleSister]

Just to be clear -

I am not trying to persuade anyone that windfarms either do or do not cause harm to birds. I don't know for sure, but have outlined above in this thread both what I do and do not know.

I get the impression, though, that I'm wasting my time in doing that, as most people seem to have decided whether wind farms are a good or (more likely) bad thing, and are only interested in evidence, if at all, insofar as it supports their prejudice.

I am neither particularly for or against wind farms. I tend to think they seem generally less environmentally destructive than any of the alternatives, except a radical change in our profligate lifestyles that seems (to cut a long story short and consistent with Forum guidelines) unlikely to happen.

I'm open to persuasion. Are you?

 

[Knig]

If I am reading you right you seem to be missing the question of flight path. Late one season I was in the Dutch canals & was totally taken aback to watch thousands of birds in flight clearly following the path of the canals.
It really was awe inspiring because of the numbers. There were several flocks & the air was black with them .
But they all had a definate flight path, which was so obviously defined. Each flock was separated by as much as 20 minutes, but each one seemed, somehow, connected. They did not seem particularly high.
So with something that is so important to bird migration, one might ask if some of these farms have been built on a flight path. If so have the birds managed to accomodate a change in their patterns without the consequence of disorientation soon after in the flight? Do they go up & over, or through? Or do they go round them?

If you go to and read their report at https://group.vattenfall.com/uk/con...abird_study_final_report_20_february_2023.pdf

there's an awful lot of info (115 pages) and in there you'll find some truly fascinating data about how different types of birds avoid the problem, mentioning differing wind speeds, flight speeds, up, down, distance from blades etc etc.

 

[Bouba]

Just to be clear -

I am not trying to persuade anyone that windfarms either do or do not cause harm to birds. I don't know for sure, but have outlined above in this thread both what I do and do not know.

I get the impression, though, that I'm wasting my time in doing that, as most people seem to have decided whether wind farms are a good or (more likely) bad thing, and are only interested in evidence, if at all, insofar as it supports their prejudice.

I am neither particularly for or against wind farms. I tend to think they seem generally less environmentally destructive than any of the alternatives, except a radical change in our profligate lifestyles that seems (to cut a long story short and consistent with Forum guidelines) unlikely to happen.

I'm open to persuasion. Are you?

Of course that is what we are like...it’s a forum...not a jury....but if I was on trial for my liberty...I would ask each prospective jury member if they are on the boat form (or worse the ybw2)

 

[MisterBaxter]

Glad the birds seem able to avoid wind turbines.
It has occurred to me that wind farms offer the potential to provide small 'nature reserves' for underwater species. There's evidence that relatively small areas of sea in which fishing is forbidden or heavily restricted (eg around Lundy if I remember correctly) can enable sea life to recover very rapidly and spread out into much wider areas.
I was shocked to recently read the extent to which sea life has been destroyed over the last 150 years or so. The sea around the UK is almost dead compared to the abundance our ancestors witnessed.

 

[Bouba]

Glad the birds seem able to avoid wind turbines.
It has occurred to me that wind farms offer the potential to provide small 'nature reserves' for underwater species. There's evidence that relatively small areas of sea in which fishing is forbidden or heavily restricted (eg around Lundy if I remember correctly) can enable sea life to recover very rapidly and spread out into much wider areas.
I was shocked to recently read the extent to which sea life has been destroyed over the last 150 years or so. The sea around the UK is almost dead compared to the abundance our ancestors witnessed.

I don’t think that we need a wind farm to create a protected marine park or no fishing zone...unfortunately the sea where I live is almost devoid of fish...but there is a large national marine park that is close enough to see. But I suspect that without it the sea would be completely lifeless.

 

[sarabande]

My local university, for whom I teach a small renewable energy module, has a slightly different perception.

They have worked with Leeds and Glasgow on the impact of turbine blades on gannets, both physically and statistically, and in 2015 produced this

Research news - Offshore wind farms could be more risky for gannets than previously thought, study shows - University of Exeter#

The BBC has also written up the problem of land based wind farms

How to protect birds and bats from wind turbines - BBC News

I am aware of ongoing work on the effect of turbine blades on small birds and flying insects such as beetles and bees. Preliminary field work shows that if they pass through the blades' arc they experience, often fatally, the effects of very sudden high and low air pressures on their respiratory systems . One student had a sad summer task of training her dog to "point" to carcases to collate casualty data.

There are other suggestions to reduce the effect of wind turbines on wildlife, such as painting them a dark colour, but this seems to be visually unappealing to human beings who, of course, do not in the normal course of events travel within the lethal arc of the blades' reach and who prefer the psycologiccally comforting colours of off white. Perhaps blood red might change perceptions.